Sounds like it could be a pretty cool summer job. Who’s in?

This is a simple use of social media that I think should be used as an example of how to effectively get people to send out your message. First off, it’s simple. You show up to the page – you probably got there from a friend. You log in to twitter using their simple OATH (I only know that term because they use it at the office all the time). The page then asks you if you’d like to “Deploy a boom”, which basically means it’s going to tweet out their message that reads, “Help raise awareness to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by reading the info and deploying a social #boom at http://theoilspill.org“. Then a an orange thing appears on the web page with your name in it leaving you with the “Look mom, I’m on TV!” effect.

This is a good cause, it’s easy to do, and you can learn about what’s going on with the oil spill. It looks as though I was the 204th person to “deploy” a boom – we’ll see where it goes from here.

You can watch the video yourself but the basic premise is Darth Vader is in an audio studio recording his voice for the TOMTOM GPS. He just can’t seem to get his lines right. Silly Darth Vader, I’ll never understand how you became Supreme Commander, Dark Lord of the Sith. After a bit more digging I found their campaign page over at TOMTOM DOT COM (which is even cooler to say then read). The only problem is I had to use my own will (or maybe they used the force on me? You see that’s the crazy thing about the force, you don’t know when it’s being used on you) to go check the site to see what else they had going on – and of course, they have a game. Everyone has a game. And of course in the game you can Tweet and Facebook your scores. Hooray!

So I love the video, and I’m glad they’re jumping on the social media train, but the person who deserves the big paycheck is the person who came up with the idea to be able to buy new voices for your TOMTOM. Are you kidding me? That is just to genius. For $12.99 I can download some voice that is hilarious and entertain my friends while I drive around lost because I never memorized the names of the streets in my neighborhood. I love it!

In conclusion. TOMTOM needs to give that employee a raise. Pool Worldwide: brilliant, well-executed ad campaign, I hope it’s paying off.

The campaign begins. In January, Jamie joined Twitter and started getting the word out. Now he’s trying to get one million people to sign an online petition that he plans on taking to the White House to present to the President. The word is out, the Tweets are being retweeted, the Facebook page points to the petition and his site which has everything you’d need to know about Jamie’s Food Revolution.

I also enjoyed this Mashable interview by Brenna Ehrlich where Jamie explains exactly what the food revolution is. Interviews like this just go to show how much of an effort the guy really is putting into his campaign.

I don’t have kids but some day I hope to, and when I do I’d like them to be served good food by the school system. I could write a whole post about the importance of eating healthy food, and how feeding kids properly not only benefits them, but all of us. Instead I’d like to support the movement by signing the petition and posting this for all of you to read in hopes that you’ll do the same.

Though the idea is simple, it seems the technology is a bit complicated. A consumer comes to a video and is able to click on various objects which then causes a link or some sort of display change within the video. This is exactly what Diesel has done. The photo shown below is a screen capture of what happens when you roll your mouse over their ad. The video stops and arrows start to point at everything that is available to be purchased through Diesel. As you move the cursor around, you discover different items that you can buy (as seen below). You can then click on any item and a little box will appear within the player asking if you’d like to buy, or get more info.

I wouldn’t argue that this is the best way to shop, but I would say that it’s an interesting way to discover clothes that maybe you wouldn’t have seen by just browsing their web page. It’s also interesting to see how the clothes fit moving people rather than just sitting on models. Again, I’m not sure that will convince you to buy something, but it might. The reason this is so spectacular though is the fact that you can shop while you’re watching a commercial. It seems that this is any brands dream. Imagine if you were at home watching television and you could pause a commercial, or even a show, click on a item, and buy it right there. That would eliminate several steps including pulling out your computer, searching for the item all over the web, then buying it.

The technology for this on television may be pretty far away, but I see no reason for a show not to start making some serious money off labeling everything in their show, contacting the brands and taking a cut of all items sold through the show. It would definitely change the viewing experience, but it would be totally controlled by the consumer, stopping the show when they wanted to know more about a product. Online you may even be able to take away the repetitive commercials this way. I think this is the wave of the television and consumerism future and whoever gets on it first wins.

To watch Diesel’s video, click here.

What I was looking for when I headed over to 37 Signals’ homepage was the format of their web pages. I’m working on a new project at work that will bring a new perspective to our company – the idea is to create an atmosphere that brings people back to our site for other reasons than to see what our products are about. Basically we don’t want our webpage to be totally static, so we’re looking to create more content – like we used to do with “Seesmic du Jour“. 37 Signals does this quite well – even stepping outside of their digital presence into the print world.

They have a book! It’s called “REWORK“. I’d like to make a few points here:

37 Signals is a company that makes easy-to-use web apps for businesses. They say on their site “Every day the world’s most respected brands, small businesses, non-profits, and entrepreneurs depend on our products to make their businesses run smoothly. Safe, secure, and reliable. Since 2004.”
So you could go to their site to download software, or to see what people who use their products think about it, but you can also keep up with their “daily thoughts and opinions” on their Signal vs Noise blog. Or, you could get their book “REWORK” which they have made a very clever video advertisement for and posted on YouTube.

So let’s look at this business construct that they’ve designed – it’s awesome. First they’ve made a several products that people love. Second, they’ve designed a web page that is welcoming and informative. When you show up to it you can find figure out what they do – without information overload. They’ve made a blog that they regularly update and therefore bring people back on a constant basis. They’ve written a book. If you read the book, it may lead you to the company – as it did for me. If you go to the blog, it may lead you to the YouTube video, which will lead you to the book. The web page advertises the book. Everything links back to them, their brand, their company. I’m not sure if they’d prefer you use their products, read their book, or follow their blog – but I’m sure they’d be happy if you did any of those. The point is – their reach is massive, now spreading beyond their own web page and into pages that you physically flip in your hand – a book that our boss wants his employees to read.

This is a salute to 37 Signals and their awesome brand presence.

Not only does this video make GEICO look like a “good” (in the “not evil” sense) company filled with “good” people, it makes it look like a fun place to work. I’m telling you, if your company has the money to hire someone to make videos about how awesome you are, you should. If done right, the video will grab viewer’s attention and remind them about how cool you are. Could you imagine if Coke suddenly started posting videos about the crazy hi-jinks that happen at Coke Corporate? I’m telling you – people would watch it, love it, and think that Coke was the best company on earth. Well played GEICO.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

This ad was passed along to me by Dan Martell (@danmartell)